Bethlehem: Patriarch appeals for help as more Christian land is confiscated

Patriarch Michel Sabbah, former head of the Latin Church in Jerusalem made a desperate appeal to the Christian world after Sunday Mass at Cremisan, near Bethlehem yesterday. Sabbah said: "The message to the Christian world, the international community and the Arab world is that this Holy Land is burning, dying and being destroyed, and if you really care about justice and equality, you have the obligation to stop this war, killing and destruction."

Addressing participants who went on to take part in a protest march after the Mass, the Patriarch said: "This is our land, and will always remain ours. They claim it's their land, but they use their soldiers, their tanks, their military occupation to force their will - and it is not their land. It is our land, and one day their forces will withdraw and the land will return back to its indigenous Palestinian owners."

Sabbah urged the world to support the people of Beit Jala in their battle against the separation wall and called on the Palestinian Authority to bring attention to Israeli violations against Palestinians. Nearly 60 kilometers of the wall already cuts through the Bethlehem governorate and is built on Palestinian land, according to the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs. Israel's High Court ruled in April that the work must stop and told the government to consider alternative routes.

Source: IMEMC.org

See also: ICN 21 August 2015 - Holy Land: Patriarch says Cremisan wall is 'an insult to peace' www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=28126

ICN 31 August 2015 - Israeli army attacks Christian protest after Mass www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=28188